For a myriad of reasons, attempts are often made to copy or imitate products for commercial gain. While counterfeit products will often appear visually identical to the original products, the counterfeit products often will not authentically posses the properties that impart the favorable attributes of the original. Such deception can cause harm, sometimes irreparable harm, such as to the brand name or brand image of the producer of the original product. Significant commercial gain can also be obtained by counterfeiters through the dilution of the original products with a readily available, less expensive material.
For instance, petroleum products can be tagged for identification purposes with coloring agents to provide a distinct color visually perceptible to the naked eye. Such tagging allows these tagged petroleum products to be distinguished from other petroleum products for a number of reasons, including to distinguish the manufacturer, to differentiate similar fuels taxed at different rates, to identify various grades of the fuels, to render untraceable the adulteration, counterfeiting, and/or misuse of the petroleum product, and to make it hard to detect other unlawful practices (such as tax evasion and theft).
For lower taxed petroleum products, governments have commonly required these to be colored so that they may be distinguished from similar fuels subject to higher tax rates and to assist in the detection of tax evasion. Petroleum products are also colored by oil companies that market brand name products (such as gasoline) to prevent misuse by their dealers. Such oil companies must insure that their branded products meet specifications regarding volatility and octane specifications, and they also provide their products with effective packages containing detergents and other additives. To do so, there is a price the oil companies must pay. In turn, consumers recognize the value of these name brand products and are willing to purchase the petroleum products at a higher price due to the increase quality. By imitating or diluting the branded product, a dealer can take advantage of consumers and reap increase profits while selling an inferior product.
It is also known that coloring agents are not always reliable. The coloring agent may be removed by relatively simple methods such as acid/base reactions. Or natural substances or the additives may obscure the coloring agents and make them difficult to detect. Another problem a high dosage level of the coloring agent is need for detection, which can create increased costs and other problems.
What is needed is a tagging compound that can be added to an original product to provide for a more secure technique for the field determination of authenticity of the product. The tagging compound should not be easily removable. Also, it would be beneficial if little training of the monitoring personnel is required and the tagging compound used for marking or tagging the original product was relatively inexpensive.